Silent, indomitable, disheveled, he raised it on high.
Then, with a cry: “See, ye people, how I answer traitors!” he whirled it outward into the void.
Over and over it gyrated through vacant space. Then, with an echoing splash, the river took it, and the swift current, white-foaming, boisterous, wild, rolled it and tumbled it away, away forever, into the unknown.
With harsh cries and a wild spatter of bullets aimed high above them, Allan drove the cowed and beaten partizans of H'yemba jostling, fleeing, howling for mercy, down the terrace-path between the cliff and parapet.
Only then, when he knew victory was secure and his own dominance once more sealed on them, did he run swiftly back to his boy.
Snatching up the child, he retreated into the home cave again; and now for the first time he realized his wan and sunken cheeks were wet with tears.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE COMING OF THE HORDE
Now that, for an hour or two at least, he felt himself free and master of the situation, Allan devoted himself with energy to the immediate situation in Cliff Villa.
Though still weak and dazed, old Gesafam had now recovered strength and wit enough to soothe and care for the child.
Allan heard from her, in a few disjointed words, all she knew of the kidnapping. H'yemba, she said, had suddenly appeared to her, from the remote end of the cave, and had tried to snatch the child.